I work for a once successful company, that since being bought by an American company is dying on its arse.
We used to have a culture where we openly spoke about our failures, where we needed to improve, where our knowledge was weak, and we knew we had to do this in order to get better.
Well, we were successful, bloody successful, and an American outfit bought us for silly money. Since then they have systematically ruined every department, every process, every product. They got rid of all the decent senior staff. Sent in their own management who are unfamiliar with the industry and it continues to go from bad to worse.
We all have to behave like we are part of the most amazing business in the world. It doesn't matter how badly the business performs we have to whoop and cheer and watch as the execs double down on bad decisions. Occasionally an American exec will travel over to meet 'the troops' like they are the next General Patton. Despite the office having the atmosphere of a funeral parlour they give long loud pointless speeches that contain no useful information. They ask people what their favourite thing is about working here and are confused when no one can think of anything to say. They still smile though with their offensively white teeth on show.
And the absolute worst is the money-money-money attitude. We don't bother honouring contracts anymore, the attitude is if someone gets upset they can sue us. I have to secretly tell our customers these days to put it in the contract that payment will only be made on completion. I've seen customers pay up front and we've not even started work. To be clear this is a massive corporation, not some dodgy money laundering outfit.
The only good things are we are now performing so badly we are ripe for a hostile takeover, and the exec shares are worth a fraction of what they used to be.